Responsibility as Empowerment

As with all concepts, we look at “responsibility” through a lens. Many of us think of “taking responsibility” as doing what we should do, regardless of what we want to do. It’s doing what we think is “right.”

Kinda boring.

Others focus their efforts on responsibility for others, which sometimes is necessary (with children, for example), and sometimes becomes caretaking that robs them of self-responsibility.

Self-responsibility is nothing more or less than owning your life. Owning, for example, the aspects of your life you tend to avoid and let slide, and owning whatever mess results. It is taking responsibility for your unhappiness, and for living more of your potential.

Rather than “I can’t” (settling into deficiency) or “there isn’t any for me” (a deprivation story), or “I don’t really want it” (sour grapes/rationalization), or “this is good enough” (denying your deeper wants and callings), or blaming others for your suffering and feeling powerless to heal it (victimhood), you say, This is mine to shape. It is up to me what I make of this.

I once heard an anecdote in which Byron Katie told her daughter (the words are not exact) “I’m 100% responsible for your unhappiness, and you are 100% responsible for healing it.” At the time I was unimpressed. Why do you get to skip out on this? I now appreciate where she was coming from. In this case Katie (as she is known) is saying, “I messed up. The wounding is from me.” Yet she also understands that we each have to do our own healing.

In my therapy practice I work with people who were quite (legitimately) “wronged.” It is those who take responsibility for their healing who get better. Having been injured or traumatized by a situation can lead to passive helplessness if we’re not careful.

Sometimes we do need to blame—temporarily. This happens as we see the impacts of others’ neglectful or abusive or unskillful behavior. The greatest value is in stepping out of self-blame. Yet we also need to empower ourselves to shape our own lives.

Responsibility = response ability. It is the ability to respond and to shape our circumstances. Without this, we remain victims. Disempowered. Bitter. Abandoning our own potential.

In interpersonal conflicts, taking responsibility means “owning our stuff,” seeing how we contribute to a problem. It also means being an active part of the solution.

Taking responsibility is not waiting for someone else to rescue you or make it better.

Taking responsibility is being in charge of your life. It is deciding how you spend your money and your time, and what you do with your life force.

It is taking responsibility for any lack of fulfillment in your life. Where have you drifted off from full engagement and what makes your heart sing? Where are you settling?

It is being clear about what outside yourself you want to contribute to and what you do not. You are not roped into anything, but rather choose.

It doesn’t mean you are the cause of everything in your life, but it is yours to consciously choose how to respond. So rather than go so far as to say you cause your allergies (an endless cycle of self-blame), it is saying it is yours to manage them.

Ultimately, responsibility is about empowerment. Choice. Consciousness. Quite different than being caught in Good Girl or Good Boy and being resentful.

P.S. Thank you for reading. If you enjoyed this article and want to receive others like it, please sign up for more. If this piece sparks something in you, please let me know by sharing your thoughts below.

6 comments on “Responsibility as Empowerment”

Hi Jasmin, I do resonate with this, and possibly all of your posts. I am glad to have found you on the web after years of enjoying the Tarot of Transformation, which came to me mysteriously, a used book, without the cards, and now is part of my morning practice of centering and receiving wisdom from a Wiser Place. ( I now have the cards, too.) Thank you so much for your work. I so appreciate it.
Phyllis

Thanks, Phyllis. How great that you used the tarot book this way. And until the new edition in Dec, it didn’t even have a visual of the cards! Keep working with your Wiser Place. Many blessings. Jasmin

Growing up with abuse is like being brainwashed into believing that this is normal existence. It took me till I was 50 to begin to look at other options in my life. Slowly I move further and further from that energy field and now find it a ‘daring adventure’ to discover my own unique path to peace and happiness. I am grateful that you share your wisdom and works with all of us on the “healing path.”
Thank you!!
Sherri

Yes, whenever we break free of that gravitational field of our conditioning, it becomes a daring adventure. Thanks, Sherri, for sharing. True of abuse, neglect, and also true of the less extreme “lies” that relate to who we know ourselves to be–anything less than our shining nature.

Hi I found your posts on Vunerability and Trauma very nurturing and helpful. And also the post abt Responseability and Empowerment. I am sorry to see that the On-line website to support emotionally neglected and abused daughters discontinued. I was hoping for some support. I bought two of yr books this year and haven’t finished reading Healing from Trauma and how to reclaim our life. I have found yr posts nurturing as I said and helpful. I need support on a daily basis but have only interenet and I am socially isolated due to my life’s history and abuses I’ve become reclusive.
Thankyou for this opportunity to voice my needs.